Stalked

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE


Lucy returned to Quantico Wednesday night. She was surprised by the warm greeting from her classmates. “The assistant director himself came to fill us in on what happened,” Reva said. “Rick Stockton. Can you believe it?”

“I’m just glad I don’t have to repeat the story a dozen times,” Lucy said.

“Just once,” Carter said. “We deserve the details.”

“You do.” She smiled. “I appreciate your support, but right now I have to meet with the Chief. More reports.”

She breathed deeply as she walked across campus, alone, to Chief O’Neal’s office. Noah Armstrong was already inside.

“I’ve been briefed,” O’Neal said. “You can rejoin your class tomorrow if you can make up the work. I spoke with Tom Harden and he said you can have a PT pass until Monday if you need it. Or, if you need more time, the next new-agent class starts in ten days. You can take the time off, heal, and join with the new class.”

Lucy shook her head. “I want to stay with my class. And I’m fine. Just sore.”

The doctor had removed twenty-nine plastic splinters from the ceiling tiles and stitched up a gash in her left arm where one of Kip Todd’s bullets had grazed her.

“I’m glad,” O’Neal said. “You fit with your class. And after what happened with Sanchez, you’ll be instrumental in rebuilding class unity.”

“I have one favor,” she said. “Would you call in my field counselor, Agent Laughlin, and give me a minute to talk to him in private?”

Both Noah and O’Neal looked surprised, but she agreed. She left the room, and Noah said to Lucy, “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. I left the files you showed me in Tony’s office. Your office.” Noah was taking over Tony’s teaching position until they found a replacement. “Hans?” she asked hopefully.

“He was in surgery all day, now resting in ICU. Kate’s with him. I can drive you there, if you’d like.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Lucy—” Noah stopped. She didn’t know what he’d planned on saying, but she didn’t think it was what he ended up telling her. “I put a commendation in your file. ‘Outstanding performance while under fire.’”

Lucy laughed while she also blushed with the praise. “Literally. I have a lot to learn, but I’m getting there.”

Noah hugged her. “I’m glad you decided to stay. Hans will be pleased when he wakes up.”

Lucy hoped she and Hans could regain the friendship they’d once had.

Rich Laughlin walked in. Noah nodded to the agent, then left.

Lucy didn’t say anything at first. She kept her eyes on Laughlin. The anger and frustration on his face were obvious, but his eyes questioned her. He didn’t know why she had asked for this meeting; he thought he’d won—that he’d found a way to kick her out of the Academy.

“You’re delaying the inevitable,” he said, breaking the silence.

“What’s inevitable?” she asked.

“You’re one of the ten percent.”

Laughlin was referring to the 10 percent of new agents who didn’t graduate from the Academy. Last week Lucy would have been angry with his comment, but today she understood.

Laughlin continued, “Just because you performed this time doesn’t mean you’ll do it next time.”

“I’m going to assume you’ve read my file,” Lucy said. “Not just this last case, but my personal file.”

Laughlin didn’t say anything, but it was clear he had.

“You think, because I had been a victim of violent crime, and because I am obsessive about my work, that I’m also as reckless as Grace Johnson.”

His face hardened, but his eyes lit in surprise. “You don’t know Grace.”

“Though we’ve never met, I know Grace. Her baby brother was killed because of gang violence. Her mother was gunned down in retaliation for testifying against her son’s killer. Her father is in prison for murder. She was the good daughter. Fighting drugs and violence. One of the good guys. You trusted her because she was one of the best. She knew everyone. She was willing to do anything to end the pain and suffering of other families facing what she survived.

“You thought she was reckless—”

“Don’t talk about her. Grace is nothing like you. Of course I read your file. You killed a man in cold blood.”

“I did.”

“You’ll do it again.” Laughlin stared at her, hatred in his eyes. At first Lucy was intimidated, but then she saw beyond the hate, and the pain deep inside.

Laughlin continued, “You’re on a vendetta. If you continue down this path, you’ll get yourself or your partner or innocent civilians killed. Can’t you see it?”

“A vendetta against who?”

He was surprised by the question.

“You said I killed a man in cold blood. You read my file; you know the man I killed raped me, put one of my brothers in a coma, and detonated a bomb in my other brother’s house. Maybe I did have a vendetta against him. But he’s dead. Whom do I have a vendetta against?”

“What would you do to people like Adam Scott? What would you do to stop them?”

“What would you do?”

“I’m asking the questions!” Laughlin was on edge. It was clear he hadn’t expected her to confront him, and the more angry and upset Laughlin became, the calmer Lucy was.

She said, “You think I want to be an FBI agent so I have some sort of authority to take down bad guys any way I can.”

“Exactly.”

She smiled sadly. “You don’t know me, Rich.” She leaned forward. “I want to be an FBI agent so I don’t take out bad guys any way I can.”

He stared at her, confused.

“To me,” she said quietly, “the badge, the gun, the responsibility that goes with being a federal agent, is my deterrent to taking the law into my own hands.

“Eight months ago I worked for Women and Children First! which was run by a former FBI agent, Fran Buckley. I loved Fran. She was my mentor. Then I learned she was using me to set up paroled sex offenders to be murdered.

“These men didn’t deserve freedom. They should have remained in prison, because they were going to reoffend. It was in their psychology, their actions, their thoughts. I knew it; Fran knew it. I wanted them back in prison. Fran wanted them dead.

“It would have been easy for me to join that cause. To be a vigilante for justice. Because sometimes, justice isn’t served. Sometimes, innocent people feel they have no choice but to fight back any way they can.”

“I think you were involved. I think you knew exactly what Buckley was doing.”

“Hmm.” Lucy wondered if he really believed what he said. “If you have any proof, you should turn it over.”

“How can anyone trust you?” he asked.

“All trust has to be earned. And that’s the crux of your problem.”

“My problem?”

“You trusted Grace. She betrayed the trust. Then she died. She died saving the lives of three other undercover agents, which should count for something. But you can’t yell at her; you can’t tell her she screwed up; you can’t ask why she didn’t trust you to back her up, why she changed the meeting place at the last minute. Maybe she had a damn good reason for doing so. Maybe if she hadn’t changed the meeting place, more people would have died. But you don’t know—the investigation into her death was inconclusive, but because you learned she had a history with the people she was trying to take down, you assumed the worst—that she screwed up because she was reckless, on a jihad against the gang who destroyed her family.”

He glared at her, his face red. “How do you know any of this?”

“I know people like Grace Johnson.” Lucy knew he wasn’t referring to her psychology, that he wanted to know how she knew about the case, but she wasn’t going to tell him. “I think Grace died to save many people who will never know of her sacrifice. I can’t tell you if she was needlessly reckless. I don’t know if she could have contacted you. You’ve never given her the benefit of the doubt, and now everyone who you think might have a vendetta is somehow unfit to carry a badge.”

“I don’t trust you,” Laughlin said.

“I hope someday I earn your trust.” Lucy was going to walk out then, but she remembered something else. “You knew Evan Standler.”

He glared at her.

“And that’s why you have been pressuring Kate. You used her guilt over the ambush where he was killed to try and get her to convince me to quit.” That was a guess, but Lucy suspected she was right. And by Laughlin’s expression, she was close.

“You think Kate screwed up and got your friend killed. Remember, Standler was her fiancé. The ambush was just that—an unpredictable tragedy.”

“And then Kate goes rogue and disappears for five years in Mexico? You think that isn’t a problem?”

“Kate saved my life,” Lucy said simply. “I trust her as much as I trust anyone. And what really hurts is that you intentionally tried to sabotage our relationship. You played mind games with Kate, trying to get her to doubt me. Then when that wasn’t working fast enough for you, you pulled out the Hans Vigo card and effectively used it. If I were a lesser person, I would have quit. I was very close. But if I had quit, I might become the person you fear I could be.”

She leaned forward and said softly, “There are many organizations who would hire me because of my skill set. That I’ve chosen to work within a fairly rigid structure and within the law should tell you more about my character and trustworthiness than what you think I’ve done in the past.”

“How do any of us know what you’re going to do in the future?”

“How do you know what you’re going to do?” She tilted her head. “If you had the opportunity to kill the man responsible for pulling the trigger that ended the life of Grace Johnson, would you?”

He didn’t answer the question but instead said, “I’m testifying against the cartel.”

“At great personal risk. I respect that, Rich.” She stood. “Neither you nor I know what we would do in every future scenario. It comes down to character.”

Lucy left the office. Chief O’Neal and Paula Kean were standing in the outer room. Kean didn’t look happy with the situation, but O’Neal said directly to Lucy, “SSA Kean has been briefed on the situation. Agent Armstrong said he’d be waiting for you in the lobby. You will be back in the morning?”

“Yes, thank you.”

*

Twenty minutes later, Noah and Lucy walked into Prince William Hospital. Noah showed his ID and was directed to ICU, where Hans was recuperating after his surgery. “Go ahead,” Noah told Lucy. “I’m going to track down his doctor.”

Kate sat slumped outside the room, her eyes closed. Lucy thought she was sleeping until she opened one eye. “Hello,” she said.

Lucy sat next to her. “How is he?”

“They said the surgery was a success. But he hasn’t regained consciousness.”

“I talked to Rich Laughlin.”

Kate didn’t say anything.

“You should have told me.”

“He was right.”

“No, he wasn’t.” Lucy looked into Hans’s room. All the pain and guilt and vengeance that had brought that scaffolding down on him. The hatred that had ended with four people dead and a man stalked for half his life.

“Kate, you’re my sister in every way except blood. What hurts is that you believed him when he told you I was volatile. That you didn’t trust me.”

Kate leaned forward and stared at Lucy. “Is that what you think?”

“Yes. You didn’t talk to me; you treated me like I really was here on some kind of vendetta. You of all people should know my heart.”

Kate shook her head. “I never thought that. I meant, I thought he was right about me.” She closed her eyes. “I’m teaching at Quantico because I’m too scared to go back in the field. Scared of what I might do. Scared that I’ll make the wrong decisions. Quantico is safe.”

Lucy took her hand. “I didn’t know you doubted yourself. I’ve always thought you were the most confident person in the world.” She paused, then smiled. “Almost as arrogant as Sean.”

Kate laughed, but tears came to her eyes. “I don’t think that’s possible.” She sighed deeply. “I leaned heavily on Dillon after you killed Adam Scott, and I began to rely on him to keep me propped up. Quantico is safe. Dillon is safe. I’m doing okay.”

“Then Rich Laughlin came in and shook you up.”

“That he did.”

“Trust me, Kate. We’re friends; we’re family. Trust me not only to do what’s right, but trust me with your feelings. We’re all scared. But we do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.”

“I love you, Sis.”

Lucy hugged her. “I love you, too.”

“Stop; I don’t want to cry,” Kate said. “I’ve been here all day, but I heard the second autopsy on Tony was complete.”

“Yes, and the tox screening came back. Tony was poisoned with a sodium chloride mixture. It didn’t show up in the Scotch initially because it wasn’t a standard compound. I don’t quite know the details, but they found it in his stomach. Once they knew what specifically to test for, they confirmed that he was poisoned through his Scotch. It happened very quick.”

“So it was Alexis Sanchez.”

“Yes. They’re going to exhume Bob Stokes’s body and run the same test on his remains. Speaking of Stokes, Patrick found the e-mail Agent Theissen sent to him. It related to the Cinderella Strangler case, and that Theissen was helping Weber with some of the background. Later, he said that he thought he was being followed and it might relate to one of his old cases, but he couldn’t be sure. Then when Theissen had his accident, Stokes went to New York.”

“You think Kip Todd panicked and killed him?”

“He didn’t know what Theissen had told Stokes. Maybe Stokes recognized Todd, or maybe Todd feared he would if he investigated Theissen’s accident.”

“Or maybe,” Kate said, “he was on the target list all along and Todd took advantage of his proximity.”

“We may never knew for certain. Alexis isn’t talking at all. She says she’ll only talk to Peter, but I advised him not to.”

“Why? He might be able to get answers we need.”

Lucy had thought about that. “Maybe, but Peter is vulnerable right now. She’s a master manipulator. She might not have wanted Peter dead, but she still was party to all this. I told him to give it some time. He seemed to be okay with that.”

Noah approached and cleared his throat. “Hans is awake. You can have one minute with him.”

Lucy and Kate walked into ICU after putting on gloves and gowns. Hans was pale and gaunt, physically weak. But his eyes were open.

“You’re back,” Kate said, and took his hand.

“Um,” he responded. He tried to focus on Lucy.

“It’s Lucy, Hans. Everything is fine. We’ll fill you in later, but we’re all safe.”

“Good,” he whispered.

The nurse cleared her throat. “Time,” she said.

Kate and Lucy walked out, both with tears in their eyes. Kate hugged her sister-in-law. “I didn’t think he would make it,” Kate admitted. “Hans is the closest thing I have to a father.”

“He’s strong and stubborn and healthy,” Lucy said. “Are you going home?”

“I’m going to stay a while longer.”

Noah asked Lucy, “Do you need a ride?”

“Sean’s here,” Lucy said. “I’m reporting back to Quantico tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll see you then.” He sat next to Kate and Kate began telling the story about how she’d first met Hans.

Good, Lucy thought. They’d all been through an emotional wringer after losing Tony. With Hans on the mend, they could focus on the positive.

She left the hospital and spotted Sean’s Mustang parked near the main entrance. She slid into the passenger seat and kissed him. “I love you,” she said.

“Where did that come from?” He smiled and kissed her back. “Keep it coming.”

“Hans is in recovery. He’s going to be okay.”

“You’re crying.”

“No, I’m not.”

He wiped away her tears. “Okay. You’re not.”

“I have to be back at Quantico tomorrow morning.”

“But you’re mine for tonight.”

“I’m yours forever.”

He glanced at her as he sped out of the parking lot. “I knew that the day I found you standing at my door in the pouring rain.”

“You did?”

“Yes, I did.” He took her hand and kissed it. Lucy closed her eyes and smiled, happy and content.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said, glancing at her with a devilish grin. “But I promise, you’ll be pampered all day and all night.”

“You spoil me.”

“I have an ulterior motive. I’m the one doing the pampering.”